Staff Sgt. Jorge Hernandez, 26, a Special Tactics combat controller with the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron, died in an off duty incident in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday (1 Jan 2019). The incident is currently under investigation.

Hernandez enlisted in the United States Air Force as a Special Tactics combat controller on Feb. 29, 2012. He immediately entered the two-year combat control training program and upon completion of the pipeline, he was assigned to the 23rd STS, here. The 23rd STS is part of the 720th Special Tactics Group, 24th Special Operations Wing, Air Force Special Operations Command.

“Jorge was a gregarious individual. Always laughing, smiling, and trying to cheer people up around the squadron. He was the guy who everyone knew because of his spirit and liveliness,” said Maj. Steven Cooper, commander of the 23rd STS. “This is a tragic loss to the Special Tactics community and our thoughts are with his family, friends, and teammates at this time.”

Hernandez was a qualified military static-line jumper, free fall jumper, and an Air Force qualified combat scuba diver. As a Special Tactics combat controller, Hernandez was specially trained and equipped for immediate deployment into combat operations to conduct global access, precision strike, and personnel recovery operations. He was skilled in reconnaissance operations and air traffic control.

Off-duty, Hernandez spent his time in the local community coaching young children and adults the fundamentals of wrestling. Because of the dedication to his community and his volunteer service, he was awarded the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal.

HURLBURT FIELD, FL, UNITED STATES

01.03.2019

Courtesy Story

24th Special Operations Wing Public Affairs

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During his military career, Stocker has completed two special operation duties as a former Army Special Forces medical sergeant (with combat diver certification) and Air Force Pararescueman. Regardless of branch of service, special operation programs have a high standard of acceptance and a passing rate of lower than 10 percent. According to Stocker, thousands will try out, a hundred will get chosen for selection training and less than 10 will graduate.

“To come to our program takes a lot of guts, dedication and motivation,” Stocker said. “We get men and women who are a cut above the rest; many of them are former athletes who think they are in great shape, but it’s not about being the fastest or strongest. It’s about expanding your circle of comfort and your mind, developing as a young adult and learning to work as a team.”

Four days a week Stocker and four other instructors, a former pararescueman, a Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer, and two Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance members, coach more than 20 men and women in running, swimming, water confidence, and team building exercises for two to three hours.

Each week participants spend two days in the water and two days on land. They also participate in one extended training session a month on the weekend. The training includes warming up, calisthenics, underwater tasks, rucksack marching, sprinting, working together and listening to directions.

“Each day is different and when people come to our program, we brief them beforehand but they don’t really know what to expect,” Stocker said. “We provide them with a challenge and we focus on proper form and technique; with that comes the speed.”

Stocker envisioned SFTA to be the beginning step for future special operations men and women who will one day lead the nation’s defenses. So far, the program has trained more than 100 men and women since 2012, but Stocker’s journey training others to follow in his footsteps started 6 years prior. While visiting his home state of Pennsylvania, a friend told Stocker that his son would like to become a pararescueman.

“He’s the first guy I can say I prepared to become a PJ (pararescueman),” Stocker said. “It’s an awesome feeling for me and every one of the instructors at SFTA, when one of ours makes it through selection. We aren’t just giving them a physical challenge, we are setting them up for the rest of their lives.”

Stocker is versed in special operations, but his military journey began in the Air Force as a jet engine mechanic and then he later joined an aeromedical evacuation team on C-141 Starlifter aircraft. He wanted to join the pararescue career field, the military’s combat-search-and-rescue tip of the spear, but didn’t know how to swim. He hired a swim coach to learn stroke techniques and was later sent to the pararescue indoctrination course.

“I failed the swim.” Stocker said. “I do (SFTA) because when I was training there was no program around. I told my swim instructor what I wanted to do and he had no idea about water confidence training. I also do it because I enjoy training and mentoring.”

Today as a traditional reservist, Stocker oversees patient triage from aircraft to hospital and acts as a patient’s advocate while confirming patients are kept in stable conditions before the next echelon of care. He has two daughters and says the greatest challenge has been juggling his family, anesthesia profession, his reserve duty and SFTA. He couldn’t do it without the help of his instructors and his love for helping others.

One other SFTA instructor who works with Stocker, former pararescueman Mike Mahoney, said he also does this job for the enjoyment of developing young adults into great men and women.

“Just the other day I had one of those moments when I saw a guy swimming and I thought to myself, wow that’s good form,” Mahoney said. “I wanted to know who that person was, and it turned out to be one of our students who came to us not knowing how to swim. Now he’s working as a lifeguard and wants to become a pararescueman.”

Leo Fernandez, one of the participants who joined SFTA not knowing how to swim said Stocker and the coaches have changed his life, both physically and mentally.

“I can honestly say I would not have stood a chance in selection without Colonel Stocker,” Fernandez said. “He has worked with me on my swims and has taught me how to get out of my shell. Now I can say I am comfortable being uncomfortable.”

According to Stocker, SFTA participants aren’t always looking to don a beret, many of them want to be police officers, firefighters, do other jobs in the military or even are just looking to lose weight.

“We are a joint service prep training, but your end goal doesn’t have to be in special operations,” Stocker said. “Whatever your goal is in life, do your homework, find your target, and stick to it.”

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Story courtesy of DVIDS

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Personnel from Bagram Airfield and the Special Operations community gathered at the Memorial Courtyard at Camp Cunningham to recognize Medal of Honor recipient, U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. John A. Chapman.

During the Medal of Honor commemoration ceremony, Airman from the 26th Expeditionary Special Tactics Squadron (ESTS) remembered the courage and valor Chapman displayed high on a mountaintop in the eastern highlands of Afghanistan, approximately 130 miles from Bagram Airfield.

“He died on that mountain top, not in vain but while rescuing a teammate and protecting a helicopter full of men he had never met,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Chaz, a special tactics airman deployed to Bagram. “John Chapman died as he said in high school, ‘putting others ahead of himself,’ and was a living and breathing example of the Special Tactics motto, ‘First There….That Others May Live’.”

For his heroic actions during the Battle of Takur Ghar, Chapman was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross on January 10, 2003, and last Wednesday, President Trump presented the Medal of Honor to Chapman’s widow, Valerie Nessel, in a White House ceremony.

“Master Sgt. Chapman’s actions on Takur Ghar Mountain were extraordinary,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Buck Elton, Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan and NATO Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan commanding general. “Advances in technology and years of hard work by many Special Tactics Airmen have allowed us to more fully understand the brutal battle. We can now see how Chappy bravely attacked al-Qaeda, continued to fight after being wounded and ultimately died protecting his teammates.”

Chapman, who “distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism” is the first Special Tactics Airman to be awarded the Medal of Honor and the first Airman since the Vietnam War to receive the nation’s highest award for valor.

“His courage, skill and willingness to give his life so that others may live have long-earned the deep respect of joint special operations forces,” said Elton. “We are grateful and proud President Trump awarded him the Medal of Honor and presented it to his wife and daughters.”

With a backdrop of a mural painted to forever immortalize Chapman’s legacy, the ceremony concluded with the 26th Expeditionary Special Tactics Squadron leading the crowd in memorial push-ups as they paid tribute to a fallen warrior, an Airman and an American Hero.

Established in 2009, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan is a U.S.-led mission that directs and enables U.S. military operations in support of Resolute Support, NATO’s train, advise and assist mission. Its purpose is to sustain campaign momentum in Afghanistan. It is also tasked with executing responsibilities and oversight for manpower, material and logistics, basing and operational movement in the country, supporting a responsible economic transition that encourages a resilient Afghan economy.

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, AFGHANISTAN

08.29.2018

Story by Capt. Chelsi Johnson 

455th Air Expeditionary Wing  

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This story is embedded from DVIDS

Derek, ST PJ and Team Leader on the mission, describes the mission drop, prep and on scene arrival. This is the first of several podcasts by Derek describing the mission and PJs’ role.

Background video from the TODAY show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeoodlkLRBo

WASHINGTON (AFNS) — On what would have been their 26th wedding anniversary, Tech. Sgt. John Chapman’s widow, Valerie Nessel, accepted his Medal of Honor from President Donald Trump during a ceremony at the White House Aug. 22.

“We are gathered together this afternoon to pay tribute to a fallen warrior, a great warrior…and to award him with our nation’s highest and most revered military honor,” Trump said.

Fighting in the early morning hours through brisk air and deep snow, Chapman sacrificed his own life to preserve the lives of his teammates during the Battle of Taku Ghar, Afghanistan, on March 4, 2002.

“[John] would want to recognize the other men who lost their lives,” Valerie said in a previous interview. “Even though he did something he was awarded the Medal of Honor for, he would not want the other guys to be forgotten – they were part of the team together. I think he would say his Medal of Honor was not just for him, but for all of the guys who were lost.”

Chapman was originally awarded the Air Force Cross for his actions; however, following a review of the Air Force Cross and Silver Star recipients directed by then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Deborah James, then-Secretary of the Air Force, recommended Chapman’s Air Force Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

“John was always selfless – it didn’t just emerge at Taku Ghar – he had always been selfless and highly competent, and thank God for all those qualities,” retired Air Force Col. Ken Rodriguez, Chapman’s commander at the time of the battle, said in a previous interview. “He could have hunkered down in the bunker and waited for the (Quick Reaction Force) and (Combat Search and Rescue) team to come in, but he assessed the situation and selflessly gave his life for them.”

Chapman enlisted in the Air Force Sept. 27, 1985, as an information systems operator, but felt called to be part of Air Force special operations. In 1989, he cross-trained to become an Air Force combat controller.

According to friends and family, Chapman had a tendency to make the difficult look effortless and consistently sought new challenges. Dating back to his high school days, he made the varsity soccer squad as a freshman. In his high school yearbook, Chapman quoted these words: “Give of yourself before taking of someone else.”

Chapman looked for a new challenge, which he found in combat control. This special operations training is more than two years long and amongst the most rigorous in the U.S. military; only about one in 10 Airmen who start the program graduate. From months of intense training to multiple joint schools – including military SCUBA, Army static-line and freefall, air traffic control, and combat control schools – Chapman is remembered as someone who could overcome any adversity.

“One remembers two types of students – the sharp ones and the really dull ones – and Chapman was in the sharp category,” said Ron Childress, a former Combat Control School instructor. “During one of his first days at Combat Control School, I noticed a slight smirk on his face like [the training] was too simple for him…and it was.”

Following Combat Control School, Chapman served with the 1721st Combat Control Squadron at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, where he met Valerie in 1992. They had two daughters, who were the center of Chapman’s world even when he was away from home – which was common in special operations.

“He would come home from a long trip and immediately have on his father hat – feeding, bathing, reading and getting his girls ready for bed,” said Chief Master Sgt. Michael West, who served with Chapman through Combat Control School, a three-year tour in Okinawa, Japan, and at Pope AFB. “They were his life and he was proud of them. To the Air Force he was a great hero…what I saw was a great father.”

The Battle of Takur Ghar

In conjunction with Operation Anaconda in March 2002, small reconnaissance teams were tasked to establish observation posts in strategic locations in Afghanistan, and when able, direct U.S. airpower to destroy enemy targets. The mountain of Takur Ghar was an ideal spot for such an observation post, with excellent visibility to key locations.

For Chapman and his joint special operations teammates, the mission on the night of March 3 was to establish a reconnaissance position on Takur Ghar and report al-Qaida movement in the Sahi-Kowt area.

“This was a very high profile, no-fail job, and we picked John,” said retired Air Force Col. Ken Rodriguez, Chapman’s commander at the time. “In a very high-caliber career field, with the highest quality of men – even then – John stood out as our guy.”

During the initial insertion onto Afghanistan’s Takur Ghar mountaintop on March 4, the MH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying Chapman and the joint special operations reconnaissance team was ambushed. A rocket-propelled grenade struck the helicopter and bullets ripped through the fuselage. The blast ripped through the left side of the Chinook, throwing Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts off the ramp of the helicopter onto the enemy-infested mountaintop below.

The severely damaged aircraft was unable to return for Roberts, and performed a controlled crash landing a few miles from the mountaintop. Thus began the chain of events that led to unparalleled acts of valor by numerous joint special operations forces, the deaths of seven
U.S. servicemen and now, 16 years later, the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor to Chapman.

Alone, against the elements and separated from his team with enemy personnel closing in, Roberts was in desperate need of support. The remaining joint special operations team members, fully aware of his precarious situation, immediately began planning a daring rescue attempt that included returning to the top of Takur Ghar where they had just taken heavy enemy fire.

As the team returned to Roberts’ last-known position, now on a second MH-47, the entrenched enemy forces immediately engaged the approaching helicopter with heavy fire.

The helicopter, although heavily damaged, was able to successfully offload the remaining special operations team members and return to base. Chapman, upon exiting the helicopter, immediately charged uphill through the snow toward enemy positions while under heavy fire from three directions.

Once on the ground, the team assessed the situation and moved quickly to the high ground. The most prominent cover and concealment on the hilltop were a large rock and tree. As they approached the tree, Chapman received fire from two enemy personnel in a fortified position. He returned fire, charged the enemy position and took out the enemy combatants within.

Almost immediately, the team encountered machine gun fire from another fortified enemy position only 12 meters away. Chapman deliberately moved into the open to engage the new enemy position. As he engaged the enemy, he was struck by a burst of gunfire and became critically injured.

Chapman regained his faculties and continued to fight despite his severe wounds. He sustained a violent engagement with multiple enemy fighters for over an hour before paying the ultimate sacrifice. Due to his remarkably heroic actions, Chapman is credited with saving the lives of his teammates.

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Story courtesy of DVIDS

Tech. Sgt. John A. Chapman will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during a 2002 fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. The Department of Defense released a video Aug. 9, 2018, of Chapman’s last stand against an entrenched foe.

For the full spread of pictures of the PJs in Djibouti working w/ the Marines, visit DVIDS here.

For the first time in the Defense Department, a series of career field specialties is using human performance monitoring and a data collection system, as well as specialized recruiters.

Because of high attrition rates in its special operations career fields — pararescue, combat controller, tactical air control party and special operations weather technicians — the Air Force stood up the 350th Battlefield Airman Training Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, and the 330th Recruiting Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph in Texas. Recruiters also focus on the special operations support career fields: survival, evasion and resistance and explosive ordnance disposal.

Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Josh Smith, the special warfare preparatory course superintendent for the 350th BATS, has been a pararescueman, or PJ, for 25 years. He said his team was tasked to stand up the squadron within 121 days. They shadowed the Army’s and Navy’s special operations programs and used their best practices to model this new program, he said.

The team received “amazing support” from Naval Special Warfare at Great Lakes Naval Training Command in Illinois, Smith said. “And we’re using the same contract for our coaches, so some of their staff could help us set up the program here,” he added. “It’s been an amazing partnership between the two organizations.”

Pilot Course

On June 5, 2017, the first battlefield airmen preparatory pilot course ran through its first eight-week iteration. Smith said the course’s goal is to “create a program focused on creating that fitter, faster, stronger, more mentally resilient warfighter.”

He said one area the Navy would like to increase training on is psychology. “We really try to focus on that communication, team building, the character tributes of leader, integrity, professionalism, trainability and teaching them how to improve in those areas,” Smith said. “This generation knows how to text, but they need to work on communication.”

Smith said the team was tasked to improve production by 10 percent, but were able to improve it by 20 percent overall. They were able to eliminate the two-week pararescue development course, and tactical air control party candidates went from a 30 percent graduation rate to 66 percent.

Air Force Maj. Heath Kerns, 330th Recruiting Squadron commander and a special tactics officer, said the squadron pulled recruiters from 27 different squadrons across the Air Force who showed an aptitude and interest as well as other qualifications to head up this new squadron, specializing in recruiting for the three Air Force special forces career fields and its support career fields.

“Instead of worrying about 160 jobs, [our battlefield airmen recruiters] can get really smart on six jobs,” Kerns said.

The Air Force has learned that potential special operations recruits are not motivated in the same ways as recruits from the larger force, he explained. “They don’t care about the benefits or the money. They care about the challenge,” Kerns said.

“I wanted to know, ‘What’s the hardest thing in the world I could do?’ I wanted to become the most elite [and] challenge myself in the worst ways possible,” he said of his own motivation.

Kerns said the recruiters’ mission is to scout, develop and guide the future warriors for their combat calling. With this new program, the recruiters work hand-in-hand with the squadron ahead of time and have developers, retired operators, who will work with the recruits to make sure they can pass the physical training test and be ready for battlefield airmen prep before arrival.

Recruiter Training

To help recruiters understand what the course is like, about 90 of them attended a one-week version of the course, June 25-29.

“This week has been excellent training. Simple things like you normally swim with goggles, but now you have a face mask fogging up, and your nose isn’t used to having dead space, so it’s trying to breathe in but it’s not [able to],” Kerns said. “We can now absolutely understand that even though my applicant passed the test well in a different environment, he may show up here and freak out and his score may look bad. We understand the process now because we’ve lived it. It’s going to change the way our recruiters go back and work with the candidates.”

He said having the partnership with the active-duty community has also been helpful. “I reach out to my brothers and tell them, ‘If you want me to replace you with quality people, I need you to provide these things.’ It’s been a great partnership,” Kerns said.

Recruiters are critical because they’re the first contact with candidates, Smith said. “If they’re not sending the correct candidates,” he added, “that will affect the capabilities of what will be produced out of this program.”

Cutting-Edge Technology

The squadron uses many cutting-edge innovative technology systems. By January, the squadron will have a 55,000-square-foot smart gym with an indoor track with an LED lighted system called a rabbit. The gym will know when the students enter via a chip in their smart watches. The cardio equipment will read the chips as well. The weight equipment will have tablets with video cameras where the students will type in their student number and record their workout, and then the coaches will critique and send them a message if they did anything wrong in their techniques.

The squadron is the first in DoD to use a digital functional movement screening called DARI for all candidates. The camera system identifies joint mobility and strength imbalances of 28 movement patterns.

The first class had 14 candidates who were identified to be at high risk for injury, Smith said, and within 10 training days, 12 of the 14 were injured in the way the computer had predicted. “For the next class, for those identified, we gave them homework,” he said. “They wear these compression shirts and shorts that link to their tablets to show that they’re doing the exercises for accountability. The injuries went down.”

The students wear a harness with a Zephyr biomodule sensor, which measures their core body temperature throughout the day, as well as 44 individual post-training event data analytics that provide in-depth understanding of individual and group data on heart rates, calorie burns, estimated core temperatures, physiological and mechanical training. It provides feedback on windows of trainability in endurance, speed, power, strength and coordination.

The squadron’s dietician is working with Google to implement an automated process of determining a candidate’s food consumption by providing a machine-learning vision system to digitally track food. It will compare a trainee’s performance calorie burn before and after meals for nutritional intake of actual calories consumed by taking a photo of the plate of food before and after the meal. The subject matter expert can address the disparities, Smith said.

Omega waves

The most successful technology has been tracking omegawaves, Smith said. It directly assesses the central nervous system, direct current potential, autonomic regulation of the heart and heart rate variability and the cardiac system through and electrocardiogram. It provides feedback on windows of trainability in endurance, speed and power and strength and coordination.

The staff uses all of this technology, as well as contrast therapy, massage, cold tanks, movie theaters, a recreation room, hydrotherapy and float tanks for recovery and down time for the candidates.

The coaches and staff consist of nutritionists, psychologists, a physician assistant, athletic trainers, medics and many more who have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree. Most of them have a master’s degree in some type of exercise physiology and multiple certified strength and conditioning credentials, and some are Level 2 and 3 Crossfit instructors.

Some of the coaches are former National Football League and National Hockey League players, one was on the U.S. Olympic swim team, and NASA’s lead strength coach just applied to be a part of the program.

“I have the most amazing group of individuals who are the most brilliant minds throughout their different modalities,” Smith said. “This is what makes this program so successful.”

One instructor, who’s ranked in the top 100 in the world for the freestyle in swimming, even enlisted to become a combat controller and is now at Air Force basic training, Smith said.

Isaiah Harris, a former Atlanta Falcons linebacker, worked with the Chicago Bears for eight years and would take the players over to the Naval Special Warfare Team program at Great Lakes. He said all the coaches work together as a team to make sure each candidate is ready for graduation.

“The dietitian, that’s our student’s fuel, the mobility strength and conditioning coach, he ensures they’re ready to perform at the highest level at each evolution,” he said. “Administration, there’s so much paperwork that goes into each of our students. We all work together just like they will work with the Army, Navy, different embassies as our battlefield airmen.”

Maximizing Human Performance

“We all come from different backgrounds, and we [use a] best evidence, expertise approach and take the human performance broader spectrum and just max and optimize that for the students and operator staff here,” said Air Force Maj. Sean Wilson, 350th BATS human performance flight commander and physical therapist. “I know what to look for in the training because I’ve been with the operators downrange in combat. We maximize our rehab skills to get them back into training quicker. These guys are the root of our national defense.”

Taylor Starch, who has worked with professional NFL players, teaches the first DoD stand-alone mobility curriculum.

“Instead of someone getting to the age of 32 and they can’t bend over and touch their toes or they have so much pain and they have to see a chiropractor every day, I’m giving them a system they can take to their family and friends or units,” he said. “They can use it to take care of themselves the rest of their lives. This increases longevity of the force and makes sure these guys get fit, get strong, get mentally tough. But we don’t break them in the process, so they don’t spend their later years in pain. This helps increase healthy joints.”

“These candidates are a human weapons system, and they’re considered as such here,” said Patrick Wilson, program manager for innovations. He is a former career field manager for the Air Force’s security forces and co-creator of the battlefield airman concept.

“They are a weapon, and just like making sure my weapon was cleaned down range, the food you put into your body, the water you drink, the sleep you get, the technology we give you and how you leverage that and understanding your body and how it works [are all important],” he said. “The Air Force is breaking ground … through an investment in all these areas. It’s already starting to show a result, and it’s only going to get better. We are constantly improving our game. The results five years from now are going to be amazing.”

From the coaches to the subject matter experts and recruiters, Smith said the team continues to learn and reduce attrition rates by building a fitter, faster, stronger and more mentally resilient battlefield airman.

“We’re taking a holistic approach to it from the day they walk into the recruiter’s office until the day they graduate and walk across the stage with their beret,” he said. “At no point have we ever looked at this process in this way before, and that’s why this is becoming a more successful change in movement.”

“From the battlefront and the training enterprise, from our standpoint, we are the foundation of what builds our battlefront airmen, to include our combat control operators, our pararescuemen, our [tactical air control party] operators and our special operations,” said Air Force Master Sgt. Robert Gutierrez Jr., superintendent of standards and evaluations for Air Education and Training Command’s Battlefield Airmen Training Group, at Joint Base-San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.

He and Air Force Master Sgt. Thomas J. Gunnell, a tactical air control party craftsman assigned to the 26th Special Tactics Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, provide some of the most rigorous training that goes into being a battlefield airman.

“We try to basically build individuals that would never quit, [and] get them through arguably some of the hardest DoD training that’s out there,” Gutierrez said of the mostly junior-enlisted candidates, many of whom are right out of high school.

While the two trainers said their attrition rate used to be up toward 80 percent and 90 percent, it’s now closer to 69 percent. “It’s still pretty rough, and it’s extensive and hard,” Gunnell said of the selection and training processes.

Changes in Training

“How we have come to this point is honestly through innovation and change,” he said, noting implementation of courses, such as an eight-week pilot program called the Battlefront Airmen Preparatory Course, which has added to changes in training.

“We are making individuals that come through from [basic military training] fitter, faster, stronger and more mentally resilient,” Gunnell said, “[while we] familiarize them with the training and the types of environments we’re going to put them in.”

Gutierrez emphasized how the jobs that result from the intense training involve huge responsibilities.

“In some instances,” Gutierrez said, “they’re E-4s [or] E-5s controlling million-dollar aircraft, [and they] are responsible for lives and making the right moral and ethical decisions on the battlefield.”

Yet, the trainers don’t just build war fighters — they build responsible noncommissioned officers and train them to go out and “do the fight,” Gutierrez said. “We’re building the best candidates out there in the world,” he added.

They agreed that today’s technology, which produced equipment such as unmanned aircraft and sophisticated munitions has taken training a long way in recent years.

Full-on Operators

Gunnell said trainers must turn candidates into “full-on operators” for the operational force because they’re essential in light of the operations tempo made necessary by numerous global threats.

Training is now more science-based, with strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers and even physical therapists, he noted. “We have operations psychologists that are sitting there watching and assessing these candidates to make sure we are taking the right individual that’s going to make the right decision when it’s needed,” he said.

Emphasizing that safety is their No. 1 concern, the trainers said they prepare candidates in all environments to meet the needs of building a fitter, faster, stronger and mentally resilient airman to support any given effort. Gunnell said today’s candidates are “amazing” in their physical and mental abilities.

“We’re not getting the same guys, probably, that [Gutierrez] and I were when we first came in,” he said. “The [people] we’re getting now are stronger and smarter. Their aptitude levels are just unreal.

“It’s awesome to see them grow from young airmen,” said he continued. “We put them out on the battlefield … in Afghanistan and Iraq, everywhere all over the world, and they just take it and come back with a little experience. They get a little confidence, and then we’re able to grow a little bit further. I teach them so much based off what I’ve learned. But then they come back with that experience. They teach the next crop of guys coming in.”

Training special operations candidates is becoming more lethal, Gunnell said, drawing on experience from war in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We’ve been doing this for 17 years now, and it’s helped us grow the nation’s young people and [produce] some incredible individuals.”

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Reilly used hard work, brute force and creative problem solving together to perform exceptionally well throughout his career in the Marines and Air Force. His willingness to volunteer and work hard no matter where he found himself allows him to now teach Airmen their paths are not defined by their career field.

Once a Marine, always a Marine

“I came in initially and had to be a reservist, my parents didn’t want me to go on active duty at first,” Reilly explained. “I went to boot camp loving it, I hated the fact I was a reservist, everyone was getting orders around the Marine Corps and I was going back to my home in Phoenix.”

After returning home, he spent the next nine months training to be a combat engineer only to find he was actually going to be a heavy equipment operator in the combat engineer career field.

He was able to transition to active duty in 1990 where he was assigned to the 1st Landing Support Battalion in Camp Pendleton, California.

“Shortly thereafter in August of that year, the first Gulf War kicked off,” Reilly said.

He volunteered and became a part of the fight in Saudi Arabia, with no infrastructure and a handful of help, he would spend 18 hours a day on a forklift building a forward operating base. He spent nine months in Saudi Arabia, working 18-hour days and left a month after the ground war ended.

“I always did my best,” Reilly said. “Just because I wanted to be infantry Marine doesn’t mean I’m going to give up as a heavy equipment operator.”

His mentality is what has always led Reilly to raise his hand for any opportunity that may get him closer to the fight and to the front lines. He came home only to volunteer himself to deploy to Somalia in 1992 where he supported the 7th Motor Team as a M60 rear security gunner.

“One day we were coming back through a place we were taking fire and the whole convoy stops,” Reilly said. “[My gunnery sergeant] jumped out and screamed up and down the vehicles ‘Leave the drivers and the gunners, everyone else dismount, I’m tired of getting shot at from this village so we’re going to sweep it’ and I was disappointed because I had to stay and protect the convoy.”

While in the convoy, the gunners and drivers all sat complaining about having to sit out on the action, waiting for the town to erupt into a firefight, but the town stayed silent.

Coming from the other direction, a vehicle drove directly at the convoy with weapons in their possession, so Reilly and another gunner put endless amounts of bullets into the truck, eliminating the threat.

‘It clicked’

“I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve volunteered and volunteered and volunteered for absolutely everything. For every good detail there was a terrible detail,” Reilly said. “If there was any way to get me closer to the fight or get me off the heavy equipment, that’s what I would want to do.”

One day, he volunteered to search for vehicle parts to repair a Marine vehicle. From compound to compound, he and his team looked for what they needed when they happened to stumble upon a maintenance facility of some sort.

“We popped open a chained door and saw a room maybe 20 by 20 feet, full of ammunition, weapons and two Tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missiles,” Reilly said. “I remember tiptoeing around the room and calling out what I found. By this time everyone is at the door, so we start slowly handing stuff out and loaded it into our trucks. All of a sudden, we had incoming rounds.”

During the firefight, a gunner was stumbling with his weapon. The Marine had loaded his ammunition upside down, Reilly reacted, taking the Marine’s place, and returned fire so the team could get away safely.

“Right there it clicked for me that; when other people are afraid or weren’t thinking clearly, I was good,” Reilly said. “I could make clear decisions. That was where I was meant to be.”

Pick up the pieces

Shortly after Somalia, he was sent to Sergeant School after his promotion to E-5. In Sergeant School, he called his assignment manager and told them he’d like to be a drill instructor.

“It’s a lot of hours and it takes a different mentality,” Reilly said. “I was sent to drill instructor school after a year as a platoon sergeant in Japan. I learned a lot about myself, I grew up in some ways, realized some of my shortcomings.”

He became a drill instructor in 1995 and remembers fondly training troops day after day for months at a time. His training was intense and he was regarded amongst his peers as a good fit in the drill instructor community.

Reilly became a senior drill instructor after five platoons and by his seventh platoon he was the company senior drill instructor. He was remarked to be the first E-5 Drill instructor at the highly selective Drill Instructor School.

He and his team were working hard pushing recruits through the program like usual, but a few drill instructors went overboard leading to allegations against the team and eventually replacing them all.
He went from zero to hero, he explained, and found himself sitting around working a boring 5-3 duty.

“What do you do when you crash,” he said. “You have two options; you give up or you get back into the fight.”

Reilly dusted himself off, earning a spot as a receiving barracks chief drill instructor and returned to the fleet, earning an early promotion to staff sergeant and on track to promote to gunnery sergeant.

Staying in the fight at 30

“I was really thinking if I could just be an infantry Marine, I would love that,” he said. “I love running around with a rifle in my hand, I love the tactical level stuff. I had a discussion with my wife about how I didn’t feel challenged and didn’t see any interest in the future … I wasn’t going to be sent to do anything cool, I was 30 years old. She asked ‘what if you could do anything in the world?’”

He found a website about Air Force special operations jobs and found combat control, which he said sounded like the perfect fit for him.

“It had everything I wanted,” Reilly said. “I also saw the requirements and knew I could do everything except the swimming portion, so I found a friend who would help me train and we trained at the base pool.”

Around 30 years old and roughly 13 years into his Marine career, as his friends would describe him, a die-hard Marine, he denied his re-enlistment under his own advice he had been given to disgruntled subordinates.

“Maybe the Marine Corps you’re looking for is not in the Marines, maybe it’s in the SEALs, the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force,” he would say.

When he went to the recruiter, he was told he was going to have to wait for a slot to open up and then he’d be sent to training.

“I sat and watched the war start on my couch that September when the trade towers fell,” Reilly said. “I said, ‘Holy shit what have I done? I’m not in the military.’ There I was sitting on my couch as a civilian, and I wouldn’t even be able to help in this war for three years because of the training I’d have to complete.”

Aim for the top always

During those years where Reilly wasn’t able to be on the front lines, he was still top of his class in just about every realm of training. Once he was finished, it didn’t take him long to get back down range.

He was a part of numerous deployments over the following years in Libya, Columbia and Afghanistan where he built airfields from scratch; called in the largest heavy equipment drop since World War II; and attached with other special tactics units to partner with communities to weed out terrorist groups or threats.

From earning a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his ability and unrelenting service during a mission on April 11, 2005, to a Bronze Star with Valor, and many other noteworthy missions, Reilly had no doubt the battlefield was the place he wanted to be.

He has been recognized with numerous awards for his leadership and ability to lead as an NCO in the combat controller career field and in the Air Force Special Operations Command community.

He was step promoted to master sergeant in the hospital after his son was born. His only request was to stay the team leader so he could continue training controllers and deploying with them.

“I always wanted to be challenged and invested in,” Reilly said. “I was on track to have a great career in the Marines, but it wasn’t the career I wanted. CCT is what allowed me to find what I was made of and what I was made for.”

From the start of his career, Reilly was firm in his beliefs, but not stubborn enough to dismiss the need to grow and evolve as a leader and team member. Through every rank, he said he has always tried to be involved in a training course, an exercise, or a deployment. His determination to try new things and his persistence brought him to where he is today, and he noted he still continues to learn.

“Your role is to be the best at whatever you do in your team,” he said. “If everyone is the best at what they bring to the team, there will be no shortcomings when the time to complete the mission arises.”

Leading and military service are not something everyone is cut out to do. His decisions were made by him to better himself. He now urges young Airmen to make their career what they want it to be, reminding them at the end of the day, it’s their choice to attempt to reach their full potential.

“You can’t see the future,” Reilly said. “Taking a guy from heavy equipment operator in the Marines and fast forwarding 30 years and that same guy is going to be ending his career on an assignment as the Presidential Airlift Group superintendent. Nobody could have guessed that.”

//ENDS//

The original story is posted HERE.

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